Who made the first "Celtic" mandolins?

[Perry Babasin]

An old 70s Ibanez, so does Martin Aalcock... or at least they did at one point!

[Dagger Gordon]

What kind of mandolin did Dave Richardson play when he first joined Boys Of The Lough? I think he first appeared on the Boys of the Lough second album which was released in 1974. I think I vaguely remember mention in the sleeve notes to his 'long-necked mandolin'.
He was certainly playing Sobell stuff pretty early, but was there something else before?

I think I am right in saying that Dave came from somewhere in the North-East of England but am not exactly sure where, so I assume that he would have known Stefan who is in Northumberland and would probably have discussed his 'Celtic' requirements with him.

I personally think that Dave's playing on mandolin, banjo and cittern on those early BOTL albums was much more influential than he is generally given credit for. I can honestly say that I would not have been playing those three instruments today were it not for him. The BOTL used to do a Highlands and Islands tour every summer, so I saw them pretty often. They were also one of the first 'Celtic' bands to regularly tour the States, so would no doubt have had an influence there.

[ollaimh]

strongly traditional irish musicians have long eschewed fretted instruments, so until the revival few in Ireland played the mandolin. Scotland is different. they had fretted strings almost back to their introduction into europe, in the deep middle ages. hence there were mandolin players in Scotland right back to the beginning of the mandolin. a court musician , john skene, played a mandora and collected a lot of regional traditional music around 1600, and he didn't introduce the mandora or lute.

scotts also played the English guitar--i.e. a cittern as early as hey could buy them from England and there are a few refeences to scotts playing the French guitar allamand(or allemange) also back before the 1600s. and mandolins, although the early ones were gut strung--like the early Italian ones. there were Italian court musicians in dun edin(edinborough) back to the last canmore dynasty. they played mandolins and lute--usually. in fact one theory of the earliest maccrimmon piping family is they were founded by an italina from Cremona, the name being mac cremon, at first.

the irish seem to not have the same musical connections to the mainland, and the highland scotts--being essentially irish probably didn't play the new fangled Italian instruments much. both were focused on the gaelic wire strung harp, and pipes. those are the two really traditional celtic instruments-most everything else is borrowed. often due to the rest of Europe thowing them away. such as the wooden flute. when the boehm flute displaced the wooden flute all olver Europe, they became cheap like borscht and the rather poor celts picked them up, the same after the tenor banjo craze in the twenties. after that tenor banjos were cheap--untull very recently you would find nice ones in junk stores for twenty bucks. (recently for me is the eighties), so the celts picked them up. the stainer fiddle likewise.

[DavidKOS]

In fact. I would imagine that what we call Irish Traditional Music today is made up of many transplanted instruments: bouzouki, guitar, accordion/melodeon, concertina, banjo and mandolin. I suppose the harp, fiddle, the uilleann pipes and flute go back much further than these transplants tho they may have been brought in at lone time or another. What we consider ITM these days is really a set of styles developed within the last few decades.

Supposedly, from what I was told by Irish musicians, before some point in the late 1600-early 1700's, the old harp and bagpipe (NOT the Uilliean pipes, but more like a typical European medieval bagpipe) tradition died out and the style of music we associate with Ireland developed, the reels, jigs, etc. that are the staple of session players worldwide. There were other old instruments too, that formed the basis of the fiddle and flute music.

Uilliean pipes are an early 18th century invention, the accordion wasn't invented until the early-mid 1800's, etc. THe Irish flute is a variation of the early 19th century concert flute, etc. Banjos and Mandolins and what-all came even later to the party.

[DavidKOS]

But a related question I've often wondered, how did the Irish bouzouki come to be called that, when it bears only a passing resemblance to the Greek bouzouki? Was the instrument introduced to The Emerald Isle by Greeks, and then adapted? Or is there another explanation (or several)?

I suppose the answer is found in those articles, but ...

I'm fairly familiar with the "Irish bouzouki" story and there are several versions of that. Mind in every one of them the maker is English!
.......
That's a good point about the musicians though...they would use whatever was available, whether it be an American or Neapolitan mandolin. At some point someone would have commissioned an instrument.

Not so sure about the mandolin...but it was in the 60's that a few Irish musicians dabbled with the trichordo bouzouki of Greece, tuned a convenient DAD, and found soon on that they needed more low end and added strings and changed the design to something more based on the cittern.

Sobell is an obviously important early maker, but who else was involved?

[Colin Lindsay]

Not so sure about the mandolin...but it was in the 60's that a few Irish musicians dabbled with the trichordo bouzouki of Greece, tuned a convenient DAD, and found soon on that they needed more low end and added strings and changed the design to something more based on the cittern.

The so-called ‘Irish’ bouzouki developed commercially from the first one, which was made from a mandola or cittern-type body, with a longer neck added by the maker at the request of the prospective owner. There are a lot of people who to this day will swear the entire thing was invented then and there and that nothing like it ever existed before (ignoring citterns, Waldzithers, English guitars and the like….), but it was really adapted from an existing body-style with the neck lengthened to the longer scale of a previously played Greek bouzouki.
The story is featured here along with photos:
http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/sh...light=moynihan

[jimbob]

that would be the....Celts......

[Beanzy]

...... I think it was Proinsias O'Lunacy during the fammine who made one when the woodworm hollowed out his false leg as all the wood in the land had been used for making shillelaghs to use while posing for those press lino-cut makers.
Having 'borrowed' the rather suibstantial wire trusses from Mrs O'lunacy's corset he strung it up and once she found out was nearly stung up hiself. The reason the mandolin never happened was due to the scale of Mrs O'Lunacy's carriage, this meant the shot-scale instrument was never even considered as poor old Pronsias could not imagine ever sourcing strings of such soprano scale.
The name of the resulting instrument comes from her reaction.
It is the Irish Beserker, later misinterpreted as the greek word Bazouki.

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